


The Scars That Make Him

by lovebones



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scott McCall (Teen Wolf) is a Failwolf, Service Animals, Stiles Stilinski Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 13:38:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19063777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebones/pseuds/lovebones
Summary: This is the only scar visible for all to see. He hates it’s origins, hates what it remind him of and what he’s lost. He wears it with a strange pride regardless, the pride shown only in survivors of terrible things. A pride to old for a ten year old to wear so confidently, like an old friend or familiar companion.Stiles is only ten when his life changes, when his innocence is lost forever to the cruel mistress of human life.





	The Scars That Make Him

  
Stiles is ten when he and his dad moves to Beacon Hills. He is freshly without a mother, and arrives with an ugly scar marring his face. It starts directly under his right nostril, trails with a slight angle over his mouth and under his chin and then directly opposes the angle just to the right of his Adams’ apple. It follows the curve of it and continues straight down to his right collarbone, where it bumps over it and stops just a centimeter under the hard just of it. This is the only scar visible for all to see. He hates it’s origins, hates what it remind him of and what he’s lost. He wears it with a strange pride regardless, the pride shown only in survivors of terrible things. A pride to old for a ten year old to wear so confidently, like an old friend or familiar companion.

Stiles is only ten when his life changes, when his innocence is lost forever to the cruel mistress of human life.

 

* * *

 

The waxing gibbous moon shines bright over the treetops. Fate has her plans tonight, a destiny unwritten but well known that must be met. She sets it into motion with a simple push of wind on old wood, and a doorway opens in the Stilinski household. An old but loyal dog escapes into the dark, and the young Stilinski follows suit. He calls up help from the asthmatic McCall, loyal in his own, selfish, way. The two souls venture into the forest. Though the circumstances are different, they do not search for torn and shredded bodies; they do not separate as late as they should, the outcome will never change. The Stilinski child stumbles upon his loyal dog and the search party led by his father, and the McCall is nearly trampled and certainly bitten by a wolf.

 

* * *

 

Stiles slips out of his blue and trusty jeep, sweet sweet Betty, followed quickly by four-legged Roscoe. Today the dog wears his blue vest, matching the blue flannel showing under Stiles deep green hoodie. As usual, there is no leash in sight, despite the school’s requirement for one. They have long overlooked the fact, Roscoe has been around as long as Stiles himself has. They wait for Scott to arrive at school, Stiles’ idly petting the brown fur of Roscoe’s head as they sit on the steps. Scott’s beat up bike arrives not long after.

Stiles feels himself smile at his friends arrival, quickly ignoring the uncomfortable but familiar stretch it brings to his scar tissue. The thing is no longer the obvious shock-white it had been when it first appeared, but it remains an obvious lighter shade to his skin, and easily splits three of his moles into jagged halves. He turns his mind to Scott’s tale of the night before, apparently his friend had found the body his father was looking for, but lost his inhaler in the process. The claims of a wolf bite, however, are absolutely ridiculous.

“Look, Scotty, it’s not that I don’t believe you, it’s just that it literally can’t be a wolf.”  
“Stiles, you weren’t there, I know what I saw.”  
“There aren’t wolves in California dude, haven’t been for 60 years.”  
“Oh.”

Scott looks defeated at the news, most likely bummed his bitten-by-a-wolf story is now a much more boring bitten-by-a-dog one. Stiles doesn’t try to lift his friends feelings, knowing far better than to try the impossible. Instead he distracts Scott with the beginning of the Fall Semester, and with it, Lacrosse Try-outs. He himself knows that his spot at bench-warmer is guaranteed, and he certainly isn’t going to attempt to get a field position. But Scott wants to get first line this year, and so Stiles will gladly support his inane idea, no matter are far-out and impossible they are.

Things only get weird though. Roscoe is acting strange around Scott, suspiciously submissive around the teen, and Scott as a weird moment in English were he offers the new girl (He thinks her name is Allison) a pen he had no previous clue to her even needing. It only get’s worse, with Scott seeming to completely ignore him and Madison in the hall, somehow hearing what Allison and Lydia are talking about despite them being more then 10 feet away and whispering. Something is up with Scott McCall and Stiles is going to get to the bottom of it.

 

* * *

 It’s so much weirder at Lacrosse Try-outs. Scott gets chosen to play goalie while everyone (minus Stiles) throws goal-shots at him. Scott catches his first one, in fact, he catches them all. Even Jackson’s. If he didn’t know better, he would assume steroids or some other athletic enhancement drug, but he does. Scott’s as innocent as a butterfly, would never even accidentally do drugs. So something fishy is going on. Scott doesn’t even seem concerned though, simply ecstatic that all his practicing actually worked. Stiles knows though, without a doubt, that his practicing at best would have only gotten him to second line and nowhere near first.

He, unfortunately, doesn’t get a word in edgewise with all of Scott’s rambling about Allison and finally getting his life together. He would almost say that Scott is talking more than even Stiles could, but he’s fully aware of how carried away he can get. Before he knows it, him and Scott are back out in the woods looking for Scott’s inhaler. Those things aren’t cheap, and while Stiles has a backup for Scott, he would rather not waste it if he can avoid it. Roscoe trots dutifully in front of them, leading the way while he and Scott finally have proper conversation.

“Maybe it was a werewolf dude.”  
  
Scott balks at the idea, no imagination whatsoever bumping around in his noggin.  
  
“Yeah, right. Because werewolves totally exist.”

Except, Stiles actually thinks about it. Scott had told him he could literally hear Allison while she as outside the school building. It would be one thing if she’d been outside the classroom door, or right near the windows, but apparently she had been on the other side of the courtyard when Scott reported hearing her. That plus the sudden athletic prowess and suspicious lack of asthma attacks or just wheezy breath- werewolves are looking kind of plausible right now. Scott isn’t even limping or favoring his side like he had been that morning, when his bite wound had only been hours old. Stiles would bet his jeep that the “dog bite” was gone or quickly on its way there.  
  
He’s about to seriously suggest the idea to Scott when the sudden voice of Derek motherfucking Hale spooks the ever loving shit out of him.

“This is Private Property.”

Roscoe immediately returns to Stiles side at his surprise, and Stiles instinctively places a hand onto the dogs soft forehead. Scott doesn’t jolt at all, though he does look mildly surprised. Stiles momentarily squints his eyes at his friend, clearly remembering that Scott is just as jumpy as he is normally.

“Are you deaf? I said this is private property, so leave.”

Derek’s voice rings out again, and Stiles feels a bit of irritation at the presumption tone the Hale uses. He turns his squinty gaze to the older teen, full intensity locked onto his chiseled face.

“Actually, the county reclaimed about a year ago- after all there were no able-bodied Hales living here.”

It’s a low blow- and Stiles really hate pointing it out, especially in such manner and tone. He knows all about losing loved ones, even if it’s not to the scale of what Derek must of lost. But the older teen is getting on his nerves and needs to be knocked down a peg or two, he and Scott have every right to be there. (Somehow though, Stiles still feels like what Derek said is true. How despite the legal nature of who owns the land, it will always belong to the Hale’s).  
  
Derek scowls at him, clearly not happy with his words or tone no matter how true they are. Something about Derek sends warning bells off in Stiles’ head, and he and Roscoe seem to shift into high alert at the same time. The change brings Derek’s attention to the German Sheppard by Stiles side, and Stiles absolutely hates the calculating gaze behind the green eyes.  
  
“Sorry man- we were just looking for my inhaler, I dropped around here last night.”

Scott’s words bring Derek’s attention back to the two of them, and Stiles relaxes a little without the scrutinizing glare on his dog. Derek’s eyes seem to narrow even more, glare becoming almost deadly sharp, and Stiles is very glad that eye’s can’t actually cut anything, or he and Scott would need some medical care. Derek throws something at Scott, too fast for Stiles to really process what he’s throwing or that he even moved at all until after it’s done. Scott, however, managed to catch the thing with ease, holding it against his chest for all of a second before looking to see what it was. It’s revealed to be the inhaler in question, and Stiles idly wonders how Scott managed to catch something moving so fast when not even days ago he couldn’t he catch something going much slower. Of course, he’s pretty sure he knows the answer already.

Derek looks unimpressed, but the calculating look is back in his eyes. Stiles narrows his own in turn, no liking at all what that could mean for Scott. If he’s right about the werewolf thing, it could mean that Derek is also a werewolf, or even a hunter. Because if werewolves turn out to be real then it would be a no-brainer to assume that werewolf hunters are also a thing that exist.

“Leave.”

Derek’s tone brokers no room for argument, so before Scott can get uppity about being told what to do, Stiles wisely leads him the fuck outta there. He briskly walks them away, trying to put some distance between them and Derek Maybe A Werewolf Hale. He has no clue if he’s right about this, but on the off-chance he is and the super senses are a regular werewolf think, he wants to make sure that Derek doesn’t overhear them.

“Dude stop dragging me-”  
“Don’t you realize who that was?”  
“Uh no, super creepy if you ask me, what was he doing out he-”  
“Scotty that was Derek Hale, you know, of the Hale Fire and the Hale House Ruins? His whole family minus him and his sister got burned alive-”  
“Oh shit dude, really?”  
“Yes really, I wonder what he’s doing back in town, I was sure he would never come back after what happened.”  
“Stiles, who cares? He’s creepy and I have my inhaler, let’s just get out of here.”

Stiles sighs in response. He’s not really surprise at Scott’s response. Scott has never been the brightest bulb, he probably thinks that whatever changes he’s going through are natural at best and rabies at worst. If Stiles is right, and it’s looking like he is with every passing minute, then he has his work cut out for him.

 

* * *

Stiles’ first scar is received at the ripe age of four. A simple starburst of shock-white just under the dimple of his left knee. At this age, he is all babbling brook speech over crooked rock beds and four lengthy limps that stumble clumsy like over uneven ground and not-there cracks. It’s no mystery how nor why he falls and scrapes his knee onto harsh sharp rocks. Only a wonder in how he did it in the cityscape park where no such rock can be found. His mother laughs off the injury, just as energetic as he and simply antiseptic wipes and bandages the bleeding skin. A kiss that makes a younger Stiles’ think of mother’s magic healing touch over the band-aid. The injuries pain seems to disappear in thin air with the gesture, and upon looking back Stiles will wonder if it was all in his mind or is something more was happening under the surface, but in present time as an enchanted four year old, Stiles simply giggles with glee and demands ice cream from his favorite parlor.

It’s the first of many similar scars, all the pain washed away by the same magic kiss only mothers seem to know. It is only looked upon fondly by older amber eyes in the futures, when the scar is nothing more than a strange change in texture on the knee. The first of many to come, but held in special memory of long gone simpler times, nostalgia worn. It is one of few that brings a smile to his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!! This is my first Big Project(tm) with any fandom. I'm not gonna promise that I'm gonna finish this, because i'm not stupid and i'm not going to pretend you guys are either, but i'm going to try and stick with this because i'm really in love with the idea. It's canon divergent in a lot of ways, some i cant get into but occur before the start of the show. It's endgame Sterek, and I plan for it to at least go through all of season 1, i'm not sure about after that, but i do have some ideas for season 2 (though that would probably be in a sequel rather then in the same story).
> 
> Anywhom, here are the canon changes that i have revealed so far.  
> 1\. Stiles is not born and raised in Beacon Hills. I dont really have a reason for this other then liking those stories. Obviously he and his father move there either immediately after Claudia's death, or soon after. It's not really important how soon after just that it's the reason for the move.  
> 2\. This Stiles has been through some shit- he's scarred up pretty bad and yes, it does have to do with Claudia's death. He's also got a service dog named Roscoe, which i would normal name his Jeep, but the dog is more important to Stiles in that the jeep here so the dog gets the name. Roscoe is a Psychiatric Service Dog, specifically for PTSD. (i'm searching shit as i go so don't hate me if i get something wrong, i will gladly take criticism.)  
> 3\. Not as obvious but Derek is 19 in this story, mostly due to the original and first comment of his age in the show- 6 years is not a 'few' no matter who you talk do Jeff Davies. As such there's significant timeline change w/ his backstory but everything still happens, just at different times. I haven't really figured it out, but i'm trying to follow canon as much as possible story telling wise so it isn't important to know rn.  
> 4\. Stiles and Scott don't go looking for Laura's Body, though Scott still finds it. I'm exploring fixed points in this fic- like Stiles' mother always dies, Scott and Stiles always go into the woods + Scott gets bit, etc etc. It's kind of why there's a weird tone in the story telling when I get to the night in the woods. While fixed points aren't the point of this fic, I find them really interesting as a story telling device.
> 
> That's it so far- thanks for reading it and I hope you've enjoyed it so far! As always critique always welcome just don't ruin my hopes and dreams. Chapter Title is from the song Scars by Papa Roach.
> 
> Hit me up on [tumblr](http://sxphrxsyne.tumblr.com/) if you have questions!


End file.
